Deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections may increase by 70%

According to a study published Monday in The Lancet, more than 39 million people could die of antibiotic-resistant infections between now and 2050.

The authors of the study forecast a nearly 70 percent increase in deaths due to antimicrobial resistance from 2022 to 2050 with older people most at risk and driving the rise in fatalities. 

Such resistance, also known as AMR, occurs when microbes, such as bacteria and fungi, evolve in a way that makes them harder to kill with existing medications.

“It’s a big problem, and it is here to stay,” said Christopher J. L. Murray, senior author on the study and director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

Researchers have flagged antimicrobial resistance as a public health concern for decades, but this study — conducted by a large team of researchers as part of the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance Project — is the first to analyze AMR trends around the world and over time. 

The World Health Organization says the threat of such antimicrobial resistance not only makes common infections harder to treat but makes medical interventions, such as chemotherapy and Caesarean sections, more risky.

To address this, Eve Wool at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle and her colleagues have tried to estimate the annual number of deaths due to antibiotic resistance from 1990 to 2021. “Our estimates are based on more than 500 million records,” says Wool. “We have a lot of coverage geographically and across time.”